


5 Mistakes Abe Takaya Didn't Actually Make

by sparklespiff



Category: Ookiku Furikabutte
Genre: AU, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2008-01-07
Updated: 2008-01-21
Packaged: 2017-10-10 23:56:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 4,987
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/105862
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sparklespiff/pseuds/sparklespiff





	1. 1. Join A Rock Band

**Author's Note:**

  * For [shikishi](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=shikishi).



  
Abe's mother tells him he's throwing his life away. When their new lead singer shows up, he thinks she might be right.

"I-I'm quitting music," he says. "I-I'm not a g-good singer."

"Just sing," Abe tells him. Momokan and Tajima and Hanai and Sakaeguchi stare at him, and he looks like he's going to pass out. Abe wonders how he manages to sing on stage in front of hundreds of people when he can't seem to sing in front of five, but finally, finally, with a lot of very obvious trembling, he starts.

It's awful. Mihashi Ren can't sing a line without stuttering and his voice is so quiet Abe wonders how it is he's alive, what with his clearly weak lungs, but Momokan had brought him in and said he was their new lead singer, and as Abe doesn't really feel like being hit over the head with his own drumsticks, he decides to see what the kid can do.

He shoves some music at him, and after a surprisingly short time, involving lots of shaking and mumbling and impossible facial expressions, Mihashi turns to him. "I-I'm ready."

Abe knows the vocals for this song are complicated. Abe _wrote_ the vocals for this song, and he wrote them complicated. He considers telling Mihashi to take some more time with it, but whatever. It'll be his own fault if he screws it up.

"I have one rule," Abe starts, and Mihashi looks at him, quaking, with his eyes huge like baseballs. Satisfied that he has Mihashi's full attention, Abe continues. "Stick to the music. I hate vocalists who change the song."

Mihashi nods about fifteen times and then walks to the microphone. Abe counts them in and starts the beat. Sakaeguchi comes in on bass, and then Tajima on guitar, and then Hanai on keyboard.

And then Mihashi starts to sing.

And the thing is, he's perfect. He's not stuttering anymore, and even if he's still quiet, he's hitting every note in exactly the way Abe imagined it. Abe speeds up, Mihashi follows. Abe slows down, Mihashi follows again. Tajima is grinning like a maniac through his entire guitar solo and when the song ends, Tajima whoops.

"WE'RE GONNA WIN AN EMMY!"

Hanai looks pained. "Tajima, I think you mean a Grammy. And those are American awards…"

Tajima is undeterred. He pounces on their new lead singer (Abe makes a note to talk to him about that; Mihashi looks fragile) and starts babbling at him. "What was your name again? Mihashi? We're gonna play aaaall the big venues and then we're going to win all the awards! What do you think?"

Mihashi's response appears to be falling into unconsciousness.

Grinning is bad for Abe's image, so he doesn't. But as Hanai walks over to keep Tajima from shaking Mihashi's brains out, and Sakaeguchi closes his eyes in the corner, Abe allows himself a smirk and silently decides that Tajima's right. Now that they have Mihashi, he knows they're going to be _famous_.


	2. 1.5 Join a Rock Band Omake

  
Mihashi always slept like the dead after a concert. Abe wondered if that was the reason he never noticed the way the hotel beds were pushed together in the morning. Mizutani noticed one day, when he walked in to tell them breakfast was ready, and promptly told _everyone_.

Hanai disapproved.

Tajima tried it on Hanai.

Hanai disapproved again, this time loudly and more violently. The tambourine was cheap and easily replaced but the stitches Tajima required above his left eyebrow were not as cheap. Tajima thought the scar made him look badass, and fangirls agreed, so Abe figured it was okay and wrote a song about it.

The song heavily featured the tambourine and also topped the charts for weeks. Abe wondered what would happen if he climbed into Mihashi's bed. He tried it. Mihashi didn't notice. Tajima did, and tried it on Hanai.

Hanai requested a room assignment change. Abe discovered that Tajima jerked off at night when he thought Abe was sleeping and also probably when he didn't.

Abe disapproved.


	3. 2. Get Teen Pregnant

  
Tajima came running into his classroom during the middle of English class. "I need to talk to Abe-kun! It's an emergency!"

Normally Abe would have been upset about the intrusion, but there was only so much he could take of, "This is a pencil. It is red," before he exploded, so he asked politely to be excused and followed Tajima into the hallway, making sure to look upset anyway. It wouldn't do to have Tajima think Abe was happy to see him.

Then Tajima said, "It's Mihashi!" and Abe didn't have to fake looking upset anymore. There were so many things that could happen to Mihashi—while waiting for Tajima to speak he ran through scenarios in his head, one after another: Mihashi forgetting to eat and starving to death, Mihashi not paying attention while walking and getting hit by a bus, Mihashi getting kidnapped by a crazed enemy team, Mihashi practicing at night like Momokan and Abe had told him not to and ruining his arm forever and never being able to play baseball again—

"Mihashi's pregnant!"

Abe stared at Tajima, sure that he'd heard wrong. When Tajima said it again, Abe remembered that he was retarded and someone had probably given him a message to give Abe and he'd taken it entirely the wrong way.

"HEY! I just told you Mihashi's _pregnant_, so why aren't you saying anything? Did your brain fall out?" Tajima inspected the vicinity as if he actually expected to see Abe's grey matter all over the floor.

Abe had a headache. He tried to frown and realized he already was, so he frowned harder. "Mihashi can't be pregnant."

"I'm telling you _he is_!" Tajima stomped his foot for emphasis. Abe looked around to make sure nobody was watching. Nobody was.

He kept his voice down anyway. "He can't be. He's a _boy_."

"But he's throwing up, just like that video from health class and he's crying all over the place, too, just like the video said would happen because of the hormones and he's pregnant!"

Abe sighed. "He probably has food poisoning, Tajima. Mihashi _always_ cries all over the place and boys can't get pregnant, and besides, you have to have sex first—"

Then Tajima grinned and patted Abe's shoulder. "Just kidding!" Then he turned around and yelled down the hallway. "OY, IZUMIIII! I WIN! THEY HAVEN'T HAD SEX! YOU OWE ME A BURGER!"

Abe was going to kill Tajima. He advanced with the intent to strangle but then Tajima held out a hand. "Stop! Don't you want to see Mihashi first?"

"You said you were kidding."

"About the pregnancy, but he really is throwing up—I think he had something bad in his bento and he really is upset because he threw up on that baseball he carries around with him all the time and they threw it away and—"

Abe was going to kill Tajima, he promised himself as he sprinted towards the infirmary. He was just putting it off for a little while.


	4. 3. Work for a Host Club

  
Abe stumbles into his apartment at six in the morning to find his answering machine beeping with the light blinking red. The first message is from his mother, her weekly phone call telling him to stop shaming their family and to come home. The second is his younger brother, telling him to quit his sleazy job and go back to university before their parents die of heartache. The third is from Haruna-san, but Abe deletes it before the last syllable of his name gets out. The fourth is from Mihashi, the wimpy new busboy at the club.

"A-Abe-san, you left your cell phone at the club. I-if you want, I can drop it off at your apartment b-before school. C-call me back if you want to. Um. Bye."

Abe stares at the answering machine until it registers that Mihashi hadn't left his number and then contemplates who to call. His best bet is Momokan, but his boss is the scariest woman Abe has ever met; he decides not to risk it and calls Hanai instead.

"You'd better have a damn good reason for calling."

Abe laughs. He's been told it's a creepy laugh. He doesn't really care. "What would your regulars say if they heard you talking like that?"

"You're not a customer. You're a pain in my ass. Now what do you want, Abe?"

Abe doesn't waste time. The sooner he can call Mihashi, the sooner he can get to sleep. "Do you have Mihashi's number?"

Hanai doesn't. Tajima does. Abe can hear him being impossibly energetic in the background and is once again weirded out by the fact that they live together. It also gives new meaning to Hanai's annoyance at being bothered, and Abe hangs up as soon as he gets the number.

Mihashi picks up on the first ring. It makes Abe wonder if he sat there, staring at his phone and waiting. He almost wants to ask Mihashi what he would have done if Abe hadn't called, but Mihashi would probably take five minutes to stutter through an answer and what Abe really wants is to sleep.

"H-hello?"

"Mihashi. It's Abe. There's no need to drop it off in the morning." Abe doesn't say that it's because he plans on sleeping until late afternoon. "Just come to work a few minutes early and give it to me then."

"O-okay, Abe-san. S-see you tomorrow."

God, the kid's personality is annoying. Abe rolls his eyes and hangs up.

It's a good thing he wasn't hired to be friendly, he thinks the next day, phone safely in his pocket and Mihashi safely on the other side of the club. No, half of the customers who choose him do it because of his glare and the other half because of some tough-guy-with-a-heart-of-gold-fantasy; Abe could care less about their reasons, just that he's the third most popular host at the club, right after Tajima, who is the epitome of what a host should be, and Hanai, who is so squeaky clean the ladies who choose him can pretend they're on a real date and not at a host club at all.

Then Momokan demands that everyone line up in front of her and Mihashi is no longer safely on the other side of the club. "Okay, everybody. Because Izumi is stupid and waited until half an hour before opening to tell me he was too sick to come in today, I don't have time to call any replacement hosts in. So we're going to have to use one of the waiters or busboys. Who here can pull off innocent?"

A few of the more ambitious waiters raise their hands; Mihashi just shakes and tries to hide and run away at the same time. Momokan notices, and stares at him. Mihashi starts crying. Momokan grins. Mihashi starts bawling. Abe understands the urge—Momokan's grin is a frightening one.

"Abe!"

"Yes, ma'am?"

"I think we have a high school uniform in back that will fit Mihashi. Go with him and have him try it on."

"Yes, ma'am."

"Rest of you, back to work!"

Mihashi looks surprisingly good in the all-black uniform. It's young, but it suits him, the way it used to suit Tajima before he dropped boyishness for a more pronounced sexuality. Abe thinks personally that it suits Mihashi better, not that he'd say it. Except maybe to Tajima.

It's not that Abe is a mean person. It's just that people from work are people he sees _at_ work, and he doesn't want the trouble of having to be more than one person at once. He reminds himself of this as Mihashi trembles and weeps in front of him.

He wants to brush Mihashi off with a simple, "You'll do fine," and leave him on his own. Instead he thinks about the women who would eat Mihashi alive and says, "Just follow my lead." Then he tells Momokan that Mihashi will be staying with him for the evening. Momokan okays it, but reminds him that working as a team means the night's sales are split between the both of them. Abe doesn't mind. There was a reason Momokan chose Mihashi after all. He's sure his half won't be too much less than his usual solo sales.

Mihashi is still shaking. Abe sighs, and he swears Mihashi jumps. As Mihashi's eyes dart from side to side, Abe wonders what made him think he could work in a host club in the first place. He's lucky; Momokan's club is not like other places and nobody comes here expecting anything more than conversation. He wonders suddenly if this is what's bothering Mihashi and tells him not to worry, nobody at Momokan's expects him to have sex with the customers, and in fact, Momokan has a rule against it. Mihashi pales, and Abe realizes that instead of helping he has just added something else for Mihashi to worry about.

Abe takes a deep breath. "If we're going to be working together tonight, you need to tell me what's wrong."

Mihashi just nods at him, eyes huge, and Abe resists the urge to take him by the shoulders and shake him. Instead Abe takes another breath and forces himself to wait patiently. Mihashi grows increasingly more agitated. Abe doesn't understand why, but opening is in ten minutes and he still doesn't know what's wrong with Mihashi—it's starting to make him agitated himself.

Mihashi opens his mouth, and Abe waits. And waits some more. It takes forever for Mihashi to speak. "I-I don't w-want to be a burden to Abe-san!" is what he finally confesses.

Abe tries not to roll his eyes. "Just do what I say and you won't be. Now try smiling. The customers will be here soon."

Mihashi grabs the sides of his face and pulls. Abe begins to suspect that it's going to be a very, very long night.

It starts off that way. Abe has to lean over and whisper instructions into Mihashi's ear, but for some reason that flusters Mihashi and makes it so it takes five tries for Mihashi to tell the nice ladies his name. Thankfully, they don't seem to mind. Mihashi's next mistake is pointing to the cheapest thing on the menu when they ask him what his favorite alcohol is—Abe can feel the night's earnings dwindling away, but then Mihashi confesses haltingly that he's never tried anything else and every one of them buys their favorite drink for Mihashi to try, and Mihashi's expressions are so fantastic it is soon decided that he needs to try everything offered at the club. And so the night goes on, the women cooing at Mihashi slumping redly against Abe's shoulder, everyone getting progressively drunker, Mihashi most of all.

By the end of the night, Abe is pretty sure they've set an all-time record for alcohol sales. Abe, feeling benevolent with the night's success, takes Mihashi home with him when the club closes, because Mihashi is too drunk to tell Abe where he lives, and definitely too drunk to get wherever that is by himself. Mihashi passes out on Abe's bed as soon as Abe gets him inside. He's cute, asleep like that in a high school uniform, and Abe lets himself think it because he's drunk, before passing out next to him.

The next day, Momokan decides that Mihashi is ready to be hosting on his own. Abe looks over to see Mihashi looking like he's about to faint, and also like he really wants to say something.

"What is it?"

Mihashi's mouth opens and closes a few times. Abe thinks he looks a lot like a bird. He waits, and thinks he's getting better at the patience thing. It's either that or Mihashi has learned to speak up faster; it doesn't feel like an eternity has passed by the time Mihashi finally gets out what he'd been wanting to say:

"I-I want to stay with Abe-san!"

Abe shrugs, finding he doesn't mind. He says so. Momokan doesn't mind either.

Mihashi's eyes sparkle. "I think Abe-san is amazing!"

Abe doesn't blush. He reminds himself of this and then runs to the bathroom to splash water on his face lest his reputation be ruined.

Later, when one of the customers comments that putting Abe and Mihashi together was the best idea the club ever had, Abe lets Mihashi do the blushing. He feels Mihashi tremble beside him and notices half the women at their table appear to be swooning. Abe smirks. Tajima and Hanai are going down.


	5. 4. A Life of Crime and Debauchery (or: Join A Gang)

  
Abe had once thought there would be more debauchery involved and less crouching next to scared boys amidst the mess and stink of rotting garbage. He knows better now: he can feel Ren trembling next to him and sighs, grabs his hand to calm him down.

"You're a good thief," Abe says, and tries to look Ren in the eyes while he says it. It's difficult; both of them are embarrassed and even if Abe could keep his gaze on Ren's face, Ren's eyes keep darting away.

"You're a liar," Ren says quietly, and Abe has to laugh, short and silent, because it's true, deception is part of the whole criminal thing, but he's not lying about Ren being a good thief, and says so.

"I know how hard you've worked," Abe adds, and squeezes Ren's hand tightly once before letting go. Ren takes one deep breath and then disappears into the building in front of them.

And Abe waits. His job right now is to serve as a lookout, but he gets edgy when Ren's not in his sight, and the six minutes it takes for Ren to come back are impossibly long. He's slow, still, but Abe knows he's done the job perfectly, no triggered alarms and a smile of victory on his face. It's worth it, every torturous second of waiting, for that smile.

It's a far cry from the first time he'd seen Ren, soaked and too skinny and barely conscious in Momokan's arms. It had been raining that day, the kind of hard steady rain that sounded like horses on the rooftop and Abe was glad to be out of.

"Look what I found," Momokan had said, and then Ren had been one of them. It was later they found out that he could steal, that his name was Ren, that he didn't want to talk about his past or his family. None of that mattered anyway; he'd been theirs the moment Momokan had stepped through their doorway with him, and all the rest was secondary.

She'd left him mostly in Abe's care, even if his personality got on Abe's nerves and Tajima was the one who understood best what he was trying to say through his stutter. Abe still doesn't know why Momokan picked him, but he's grateful now, because for all that Ren's adoring gaze means responsibility and so much worrying that he'll get himself caught, or hurt, or worse, it also means Abe gets to see Ren's rare smiles more than anybody else. They're dangerous, Ren's smiles, more addictive than the drugs they steal and sell, and there's no rehab for people like Abe, except for some places he's heard of in America, but he figures it's too late for him anyway.

Abe wonders, sometimes, about Momokan's predilection for picking up strays. It's why they call her Momokan—a joke that she had enough boys in her house for a baseball team. "No children of my own," she'd told him once, but she'd only been twenty-three and even by then Abe'd had over a decade of experience recognizing lies. He doesn't think it has to do with her being a gang leader either; all of Momokan's boys end up in her gang, Nishiura, but she never asks them to. They all join on their own. They all want to be useful to her.

Abe is thinking about this as they return to the house, and with Ren quiet by his side he can do all the thinking he wants. It's completely different in Momokan's house; the second Abe opens the door it's noise, noise, noise.

"How did it go? Did you get it?" Tajima runs up to them, all questions and energy and pouncing on Ren like an overgrown puppy, and Abe doesn't miss the way Ren flinches at the contact, still, before nodding his head too many times and giving Abe all the credit when all he'd done was sit there.

Momokan walks out, then, and Ren extracts himself from Tajima's clutches long enough to hand Momokan a slip of paper—it's just information he's stolen, this time—and Momokan looks at it and then calls Abe and Hanai into the kitchen to plan, which is how Abe knows it's dangerous. The first thing he says is that they keep Ren out of it, and it's almost pathetic, the way they don't even bother giving him suspicious looks anymore, just act like it's expected and move on. They decide to send Izumi because he's their fastest and Suyama and Hanai because they're the best shots they have, right after Tajima, and Tajima's never seriously injured anybody and they're not sure he can. The decision is Momokan's, in the end, and she overrules Hanai and says that Tajima has to go.

That's the end of it, and when they tell Tajima he runs around the house wreaking havoc in his excitement until it's time for dinner, which diverts his attention to food. Dinner at the house is as noisy an affair as everything else is, and the table is a little too small for all the boys around it, but it's nice, almost like having a family, even if they are a bunch of underage criminals. Momokan is probably the best thing that's ever happened to any of them, and they know that without Nishiura they'd probably still be criminals, just dirtier, or in jail, or dead.

Abe remembers his last gang, and Haruna-san, and bruises, all over, always. House rules at Momokan's say the boys aren't allowed to beat each other up, but Abe still dreams of Haruna-san sometimes, knows that the other boys have seen him flinching in his sleep; he's always meaner the day after a Haruna dream, not on purpose, but because part of him feels he needs to make up for it.

That night, though, Abe dreams of someone else.

_Ren's eyes are wide, wide, and focused entirely on Abe._

"I told you that I hate thieves who steal things from me."

"I would n-never take anything from Abe-kun!"

"You did. You stole my heart." Even unconscious, Abe knows it's stupid.

It's enough to wake him and he gets up and jerks off in the bathroom, and when he walks back into the shared bedroom he thinks he sees eyes gleaming at him in the dark. Tajima's, from the location, and so Abe doesn't care, because Tajima has no right to judge. Then he looks at Ren, in the futon next to his, curled defensively even asleep, and Abe feels like a pervert.

He doesn't fall asleep again for hours.

The next night, Hanai and Izumi have to help a limping Tajima into the house, Suyama trailing behind them holding a cloth to his arm, all four of them looking sheepish.

"We have the drugs, at least," Tajima starts, but Momokan cuts him off, caring more about the fact that two of her boys were shot than anything else. She calls their doctor, Shiga-sensei, who isn't really a doctor, but knows enough and doesn't ask questions and that's what matters.

When she calls Hanai and Abe into the kitchen, Hanai doesn't say anything about being right about Tajima. "It was Mihoshi," he tells her instead, and Momokan's expression is strange when she hears. It's almost a smile, but Abe doesn't really think there's anything to smile about. Then he realizes she means revenge, and Abe knows Nishiura is going to take over the city one day, because too many people think Momokan is soft because she's a woman, and that is an enormous, enormous mistake.

"Abe and Hanai, you're going. Take Ren and Mizutani with you." Abe wants to protest but Momokan continues before he can. "Mihoshi gets support from the Mihashi family. I want you to break into old man Mihashi's house and steal something. I don't care what it is, as long as it's valuable. You'll go tomorrow." That's that, and if they're going to steal something, they're going to need Ren anyway.

Breaking in is surprisingly easy; it doesn't even take Ren ten seconds to get them past the security system. Abe is confused, because the night before Ren had been more nervous than usual, so pale Abe had worried Ren would faint, and completely uncommunicative. Ren leads them down hallway after hallway and Abe wonders how nervous he must have been, to have studied the layout of this place enough to navigate without thinking.

Then footsteps come, and Abe is wondering which room is safest to duck into when Ren says, "In here," and tugs Abe into what looks like someone's bedroom. There's a portrait on the wall and Abe understands suddenly why Ren never told them his family name, why Ren was nervous about this particular assignment.

It doesn't take long for Hanai and Mizutani to notice.

"Ren," Mizutani starts, "is that you?"

It's a family portrait, and there's a boy in the picture. He's young and in formal clothing, and he's also clearly Ren.

The real Ren is shaking, and pale, and looks like he's about to cry.

"My name is Mihashi Ren," he says quietly, and then he _does_ cry, silent tears that Abe only knows about because of the jerking of his shoulders and the spots forming on the carpet, because Ren won't look at any of them.

Abe wants more than anything to fix this, but they don't have _time_ and the footsteps sound like they're going away, which means this is their chance to grab something and _leave_.

"What are we taking?" he asks Ren, which is the best reassurance Abe can give right now; he's close to wishing Tajima were around to help, but Ren looks at him, finally, before grabbing a vase off the nightstand and heading for the window.

"I w-want to leave now," Ren says, his voice barely a whisper, and none of them argue.

They go back to Momokan's in silence, and when they give her the vase, Abe realizes she's known all along. He's not sure he wants to think about it, but soon everybody else knows, because Mizutani tells them all, and then Abe can't think about anything else.

It explains so much, but not enough. Now Abe looks at Ren's delicate bone structure and he thinks _young master_, but then he sees the way Ren cowers when people make sudden movements, remembers that Ren was alone in the rain and that doesn't fit at all.

Unsurprisingly, it's Tajima who does the tactless thing and asks. "If you have a family, why are you here with us?"

It takes a while for Ren to answer, but they're all used to that.

"They didn't like me in Mihoshi," Ren says finally, quietly, and he's not even stuttering, just looking more hopeless than Abe's ever seen him. It makes Abe uncomfortable, and he wants it to stop, but Ren's not done talking. "I wasn't any good at anything, but they had to take me with them because of my grandfather. I ruined a lot of jobs." He crouches down, puts his arms over his head, like he thinks everyone in Nishiura is going to start telling him he's no-good now, and Abe has the sudden and very intense urge to cause pain to everyone who ever made Ren think he was worthless.

Instead he tells Ren to steal Hanai's wallet, and Ren does it, easy, even with Hanai expecting it, and Ren's not looking so hopeless anymore, just looking at Abe like he's the answer to everything, and it's good but it's heavy, and Abe's trying to figure out what to do that doesn't involve hugging Ren like _Tajima_ or something when they hear the knocking at the door.

"You're the asshole who shot Suyama!" Abe hears, and when he goes to look, there's a guy with his hands in the air, peering into the house. Instead of Hanai or Izumi, who'd actually _been there_, he's focused on Ren. Abe doesn't like it. There's recognition on Ren's face, and Abe likes it even less.

"K-kanou-kun," Ren stutters. "What are you doing here?"

"Mihashi," Kanou-says, smiling, and Abe really, really doesn't like him. "I saw you yesterday leaving your grandfather's house. Don't worry—I didn't tell anyone or anything. I just want to talk to you."

"O-okay," Ren says, and they go into the backyard. Because most Nishiura gang members like to sometimes pretend they're decent people despite the whole criminal thing, Tajima is the only one who eavesdrops.

"He wants Ren to go back to Mihoshi!" Tajima yells, and that's when Hanai drags him away.

And Abe feels sudden panic, upsetting his stomach and squeezing his chest, and he wants so badly to run outside and shake Ren and make him say that he belongs with Nishiura now, with _Abe_, who understands that Ren's worth something, and Abe hopes, hard, that Ren understands that now, too, that he won't go back with people who don't, that he won't _leave them_—

And then the front door opens.

It's Ren, alone.

He doesn't say, "I am worthwhile," but he does say, "I want to stay with you."

He's still too thin. He still shakes, still has that scared look in his too-large eyes. But he says it again: "I want to stay with you."

It's good enough.


End file.
